Description of the Related Art
Before human invented written languages, they told stories verbally. Typically, these stories captured important information, such as significant events, major historical developments, technological breakthroughs and other types of knowledge. It is not uncommon to use these stories to teach the next generation and to instill moral values. Such methods lasted for many millenniums. Perhaps we can call this the folklore era.
Then our ancestors invented written languages. They captured the stories in written words, and preserved them through different media, such as tortoise shell, papyrus, slates, bamboos, and later paper. We can call this the writings era.
During the writings era, one medium of particular significance is paper. Before the invention of the printing press, only the elites had access to writings on paper. Through the printing press, stories were put onto paper much more quickly and easily. The printing press instantly enabled massive story distribution to the general public.
Other than paper, over the course of the writings era, many different formats of storytelling have been developed. For example, our ancestors embedded stories into songs, pictures, puppet shows and operas. Powerful body languages and highly-expressive theatrical props were used to engrave images of the stories into our minds. Then, about a century ago, the movie industry came. Quickly, movies have become a dominant force in storytelling.
Separately, the era of inexpensive computing devices also has arrived. These devices have proliferated extensively to the general public. Now, an entire library of stories can be at our fingertips. We can read digitized articles, documents and books; listen to audio books, music and songs; and watch operas and movies, practically anywhere, anytime.
With all these explosive changes, one area has stayed relatively unchanged—the area of books.
For books, we are practically still in the writings era, a period that has lasted for over three thousand years. As an example, to educate students, teachers in schools still practice the folklore method of telling stories verbally, using paper textbooks to enhance the message.
It should be apparent from the foregoing that there is a need for books to move to a new era, where information can be created and conveyed to the audience more effectively, in ways very different from the folklore era and the writings era.